SMALL SCREEN BIG NEWS

Ac­tion movie re­boot se­ries Train­ing Day (2017-cur­rent) didn’t just lose its lead star in Fe­bru­ary when Bill Pax­ton passed away from a stroke fol­low­ing heart surgery: it lost any hope of a re­newal. While the sea­son had fin­ished film­ing and Bill’s shady cop char­ac­ter Frank will ap­pear in all of the episodes, sources say that “there’s very lit­tle chance of a sea­son 2 now”.

Com­edy se­ries The Big Bang The­ory (2007- cur­rent) is in line for a two-sea­son re­newal when sea­son 10 ends in May. Lead stars Jim Par­sons, Ka­ley Cuoco and Johnny Galecki (Shel­don, Penny and Leonard) are ru­moured to be will­ing to take a $100 000 (R1.3 mil­lion) pay cut to get their co-stars Mayim Bia­lik (Amy) and Melissa Rauch (Ber­nadette) on higher salaries. The trio are on $1 mil­lion an episode, while the ladies get $200 000 per episode. Melissa Ord­way (Abby on Y&R, 1973-cur­rent) and Justin Gas­ton (ex-Ben on Days, 1965-cur­rent) are proud par­ents af­ter legally adopt­ing their baby daugh­ter Olivia. Melissa In­sta­grammed this photo with the cap­tion: “Sur­rounded by our fam­ily, the judge made Olivia of­fi­cially a Gas­ton (even though she al­ready was in our heart)”.

Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch is mak­ing a quick re­turn to TV fol­low­ing the fourth sea­son of Sher­lock (2010- cur­rent). The 40-year- old will ex­ec­u­tive pro­duce and star in the five-part drama se­ries Mel­rose, an adap­ta­tion of Ed­ward St Aubyn’s 2012 nov­els of the same name. Benny will play an “aris­to­cratic and out­ra­geously funny play­boy who’s strug­gling with mem­o­ries of his abu­sive up­bring­ing”.

Emma Caulfield, fa­mous as de­mon Anya Jenk­ins in fan­tasy se­ries Buffy, The Vam­pire Slayer (1997-2003), is also back on the smallscreen fol­low­ing 14 years of once-off ap­pear­ances on shows like Monk (20022009) in 2004 and Lever­age (2008-2012) in 2011. She’s been cast in a topse­cret guest role in sea­son 3 of sci-fi horror se­ries Fear The Walk­ing Dead (2015-cur­rent) , which is ex­pected to air later in 2017. In­ter­net video giant YouTube is open­ing its own sub­scrip­tion ser­vice called YouTubeTV. “It’s an ef­fort to evolve tele­vi­sion,” ex­plains com­pany CEO Su­san Wo­j­ci­cki. Sub­scribers will have ac­cess to over 40 chan­nels and un­lim­ited cloud-based stor­age for $35 (R450) per month when the ser­vice launches later in 2017. Fire­fighter show Chicago Fire (2012-cur­rent) has added a hot new star to their cast. Ka­mal An­gelo Bolden, aka “JooJoo” Bee­man in ac­tion show Rose­wood (2015-cur­rent), has been cast as “charis­matic, loyal fire­fighter” Kan­nell and will make his de­but later in the cur­rent fifth sea­son, with an op­tion for sea­son 6 should the se­ries be re­newed.

Stephen Moyer is swap­ping vam­pires in True Blood (2008-2014) for mu­tants in the as-yet-un­ti­tled X-Men sci-fi drama se­ries on FOX. The 47-year- old Bri­tish ac­tor will be tak­ing on the role of Reed, a lawyer who tries to pro­tect his fam­ily af­ter find­ing out that his kids have mu­tant pow­ers.